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When 100 Birds Decided to Turn Our Yard into a Campground

I never thought that birds could be a problem in your yard. I was wrong. I’m not talking wrens or robins. Not even cardinals or blue jays. Even a few noisy crows or a flock of pesky pigeons would have been preferable. No, we had about 100 Canada geese. The first couple of days it was an interesting novelty. Then the droppings began to pile up. And I really do mean pile up. We had to call in Canada geese control in New Jersey to get the birds to choose another spot to roost. Their droppings were all over the place, and they are not small little spots. They are quite big.

The birds themselves are huge too. A house wren probably weighs in at a just a few ounces. A male Canada goose can be 14 pounds. Our dog is only 12 pounds! Four of the birds are as heavy as our oldest child, and there were over 100 birds in our yard. At 100 birds, that is over 1,000 pounds of collective trouble if you rile them up. The males will chase you if they feel threatened, and their female mates will sometimes join in to help them. I don’t blame them. Their places for habitat are quickly being turned into residential areas and shopping centers. We just could not have them stay in our yard.

The people that do Canada geese control in New Jersey came out and safely got the birds to choose another spot. They use dogs that are trained to chase and scare the birds away without causing them any physical harm. After the birds were gone, we started to clean up the mess they left behind. It took quite a bit of scrubbing and pressure washing to get all the droppings cleaned up. These birds make droppings you can literally pick up with a shovel.